A Customs Post That Malfunctions

The transportation of people and goods faces extraordinary problems passing through the customs post ‘Pedro de Alvarado’, between El Salvador and Guatemala.

Carriers are complaining about the customs authorities of both sides, because of the imposition of controls which are causing delays. On the Guatemalan side, they are not authorizing the use of free lanes for the passage of empty vehicles, said Santiago Urrea, a Salvadoran carrier to Prensalibre.com .

Another obstacle is that the system of both countries is constantly interrupted and the network takes several hours to reset.

The Pedro de Alvarado customs is used by carriers as the corridor between Mexico and Central America for international trade. The average daily circulation is 300 trucks, of which 30 percent are vehicles in transit to Panama and 70 percent for all other countries in the region.

"Sometimes a single truck stops the whole process over little things and that forces everyone behind to stop, as there isn't adequate infrastructure to facilitate the movement," said Fernando Herrera, director of the Guatemalan Association of Exporters.

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Problems persist in the process of reviewing merchandise at the border posts in Amatillo and La Hachadura causing delays to cargo trucks.

Double review processes, recurring failures with x-ray machine inspection and the absence of a contingency plan for unforeseen delays has generated delays of between 19 and 23 hours for the approval of entry and exit of goods, said the Salvadoran Association of International Freight Carriers (ASTIC).

Freight carriers are opposed to the collection of a fee of $18 per inspection using scanners and are threatening strikes and a change of routes.

Representatives from the freight union are analyzing re routing trucks so that they do not have to cross El Salvador in order to reach the rest of the region, instead crossing at the border of Agua Caliente, Chiquimula, into Honduras.

Exporters claim that the lack of staff at border posts at certain times of the day is slowing the processes for customs clearance, security and sanitation issues.

Lack of staff and lack of coordination in the timetables for services provided to carriers are the main causes of the constant delays faced by companies that transport goods from Costa Rica to Central America.

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